{"id":1848,"date":"2020-04-06T14:15:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T14:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=1848"},"modified":"2020-04-06T14:15:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T14:15:37","slug":"why-is-canadas-health-minister-backing-up-chinas-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=1848","title":{"rendered":"Why is Canada\u2019s health minister backing up China\u2019s lies?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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covid19<\/a> Opinion<\/a> stories<\/a><\/div>\n

MALCOLM: Why is Canada\u2019s health minister backing up China\u2019s lies?<\/span><\/h1>\n
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There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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by Candice Malcolm<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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I don\u2019t say this often, but I think the Trudeau government deserves some praise for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic this week. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, in particular, has been impressive in setting the record straight and providing a calm and intelligent line of reasoning behind each government decision.<\/p>\n

There are, however, some glaring exceptions to this statement. I\u2019m talking about Health Minister Patty Hajdu and her despicable parroting of Chinese Communist Party propaganda during Thursday afternoon\u2019s media briefing.<\/p>\n

CTV\u2019s Ian Brown asked the COVID-19 panel to respond to a\u00a0Bloomberg news story<\/a>\u00a0about a classified U.S. intelligence report on China hiding the extent of the coronavirus outbreak by under-reporting the number of cases and deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina\u2019s numbers are fake,\u201d the report concludes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way,\u201d\u00a0Hajdu said<\/a>\u00a0sternly.<\/p>\n

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This was a remarkable moment. A top member of Trudeau\u2019s inner circle was ardently defending a communist regime known for grave human rights abuses and lying on the world stage, while tacitly accusing our top ally and most important international partner of spreading false information.<\/p>\n

To add insult to injury, when Brown tried to push back with facts, Hajdu lashed out at him, accusing the reporter of \u201cfeeding into conspiracy theories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only was this an autocratic response to a very reasonable question \u2014 making the minister look more like a Chinese official than an elected civil servant in a liberal democracy \u2014 but Hajdu\u2019s comments are also highly ignorant and in contradiction to known facts.<\/p>\n

There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.<\/p>\n

In mid-February, China was widely criticized for not including\u00a0individuals who tested positive for coronavirus but were not showing symptoms in official tallies. Last week, the Chinese government finally\u00a0changed course<\/a>\u00a0to include asymptomatic cases \u2014 marking the eighth different definition of what constitutes a coronavirus infection in China\u2019s official reporting since the outbreak began in late 2019.<\/p>\n

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